This story is really three stories, since they intersect in a surprising way.
In the first, an odd mix of people turn up in the news together:
Texas Rep. Joe Barton ("BP just bought me this great watch")
Karl Rove ("Jeff who?")
Tim Griffin ("I almost used to be a former US Attorney")
Here's Digby on
their connection (my emphasis):
So now that Joe Barton is secure in his position as ranking member on the House energy panel, he's out there setting up allies in his quest to be Chairman if the GOP wins back the House and then cover the entire world in crude oil. Seems he's starting by funneling money to one of the most heinous Republican candidates in the country, Karl Rove boytoy and professional Republican hitman, Tim Griffin.
Barton's in the news for apologizing to BP, who pays him a nice retainer (by which I mean, "contributes to his costly election efforts"). And Rove you remember. But Tim Griffin you may have forgotten.
Howie Klein, whom Digby quotes, describes Griffin as Rove's
protégé, a pretty accurate characterization.
Griffin did
oppo research for the Rove–run 2000 Bush campaign, where he and
Monica Goodling (remember her?) were captured in the BBC documentary
Digging the Dirt. Their job — making stuff up about Al Gore. (
Goodling was personally responsible for vetting the more than 400
Embeds in the 2006 Justice Dept, by the way.)
From the campaign, Griffin was put on the Kill the Florida Recount team, then into the Bush Justice Dept. working for Michael Chertoff. He's held a number of positions under Karl Rove, both as a direct report and indirect. (Recall that it often seemed the entire Justice Dept reported to the White House through Karl Rove.)
Howie Klein's
story outs the current relationship between Big Oil, Joe Barton, Barton's PAC — ironically named the
Texas Freedom Fund — and the flow of oil bucks to candidates of Tim Griffin's ilk. Klein's story is a nice find, and well worth a
read. Barton is funding many Tim Griffins.
Howie's point, and Digby's, is this — head off Griffin's oil-splooged campaign by supporting Blue Arkansas–endorsed candidate Joyce Elliot. If you care, you have to do stuff. This is a good place to start.
The second story registers a surprise on my part. Rove is part of that big Texas crew — Rove, Bush, Scott McClellan and others — that's known each other forever and worked together for years. Here's Rove–author
James Moore on
Karl's first meeting with Bush:
[Karl Rove] said, I saw him walking up, and he was wearing boots and blue jeans, and a brown leather bomber jacket, and he had these steely blue eyes, and he was smacking gum. He had this thick curly hair, and you could see the tobacco circle pouch in his back pocket. And Rove said, I thought he was just the coolest guy in the world. I wanted to be like him.
Clearly that group goes way back. So what's Oily Joe doing with these guys? Is there a history there, a connection? If there is, I
can't find it, but I'm
curious.
That Texas group is large and important. At some point their story is going to be written. It's both personal and political, it includes a world-historical moment in U.S. history, and it will make fascinating reading. We should at least be compiling a list of its members.
My third story relates to the title of this article — Who is the face of Movement Conservatism? It matters who we put in that position, since that will determine our analysis of its goals — and either aid or undermine our preparedness.
The parade of names above — Rove, Chertoff, Goodling — brings back memories, doesn't it? It was an odd coincidence for me that this crew, plus Oily Joe Barton, turned up in the news just after writing about
Movement Conservatism and Europe. It got me thinking. When Paul Krugman wrote his great 2003
Introduction to
The Great Unraveling, the face of Movement Conservatism was people like Karl Rove — locals, with U.S.–related goals.
If Rove is the face of Movement Conservatism, the goal is U.S. power and restructuring.
But what if Rove — and Bush, and Chertoff, Griffin, McClellan (as was), Goodling, Barton, McConnell, Boehner, Ted Olson — are only the Movement's
public face. What if the
real face of Movement Conservatism is the money that funds them — money controlled by people like
Pete Peterson,
Howard Ahmundson, and the
Walton family?
If Money is the face of Movement Conservatism, the players may not stop at the U.S. border. Money is international. They could easily want to remake the world in their twisted, Galtian, punishing, adolescent image.
That's a whole different set of goals — something we should really keep in mind when analyzing strategy on this side of the batting cage.
(Note to Europeans: The G-20 meets in
Toronto, Peterson's watching, and you've got
cat food too. Don't get complacent.)
Globally yours,
GP
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